


a pleasant road

by aces



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Friendship, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would've taken Teal'c, he knew. If he'd had the chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a pleasant road

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery for _Continuum_, including the fanon bits regarding what Colonel Mitchell did for ten years. Title shamelessly swiped via Bartlett's (I learned from Darien Fawkes), "I do not ask, O lord, that life may be / a pleasant road"—Adelaide Proctor

They would have started north out of the Springs, away from Cheyenne Mountain. Cam would have been driving the Camaro, Teal'c in the passenger seat, their luggage thrown in the back. They wouldn't have brought much; it would have been summer, and they would have had quarters for laundry. Both men had grown up and lived traveling light.

North on the interstate, through the clog of Denver traffic and the steady stream up I-25 past Loveland and Fort Collins and into Wyoming. That would have been the first day.

"I have never been to Wyoming," Teal'c would have said, gazing out the window with all his accustomed serenity. The sun would have been setting as they headed for Caspar to stop for the night, spectacular shades of red and gold and blue over the hills and gathering mountains. "It is very beautiful."

"You ain't see nothin' yet," would have been Cam's comfortable reply.

*

Into Montana, maybe hedge their way into Canada for a bit, just so Teal'c could say he'd been in more than one country on the planet. Cam knows not everyone collects trips the way he does--whether through the gate or across this planet to other states and countries--but Teal'c would appreciate it, Cam thinks.

Cam loves this continent. He loves every piece of Canada and Mexico he's seen—even the bits he doesn't remember, and he doesn't remember a whole lot of some of Mexico, but that's not an admission he would ever share with his grandmother—and he loves every U.S. state he's ever lived in, flown over, or visited. He loves every other country and continent he's ever visited too; hell, he just loves this crazy ol' planet he likes to call home, and the only way to make sure of that is to go out and visit it some more and make sure it's still there, maybe a bit broken but still going on.

He would have probably tried to articulate that to Teal'c, somewhere around Bismarck, maybe when they stopped for the night and Cam had a couple beers and Teal'c completely massacred him at air hockey. Teal'c would have inclined his head thoughtfully, and solemnly clinked beer bottles, and said, "Indeed," and Cam would have known he'd understood.

Teal'c has observed and absorbed a lot about the country and the planet over the years. To have stuck around, he must have loved it a little too, Cam thinks.

*

East and south to Mount Rushmore, after going wherever else they felt like wandering. "I don't think we'll make it to Yosemite," Cam would have worried one day on the road. "You haven't seen enough of the mountains, Teal'c. You haven't seen the Cascades. Or the painted desert, down in Arizona—hell, Teal'c, there's too _much_, all this prairie in the middle."

"I enjoy these grasslands," Teal'c would have assured him. "It is a land where great battles could take place. The terrain creates an equality."

Cam would have blinked, and shrugged, and nodded in eventual agreement. Cam tends to frame things through what his grandma would think, or through the terms of the fighter planes he's trained on and spent so much of his life learning, so he supposes it only makes sense Teal'c would put everything in the context of battle tactic and strategy.

And Cam would have looked out over the plains and envisioned thousands and thousands of people in Goa'uld armor out there, facing each other like something out of one of the bigger-budgeted Hollywood blockbusters.

"Anybody ever tell you about the Civil War?" Cam would have asked Teal'c, soberly. "I don't think we'll get over to Gettysburg either."

*

"It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, I've come to look for America," Cam would have sung along badly to the radio as they headed down into Nebraska. Cam would have taught Teal'c the three major rules of Road Tripping: 1) Nebraska sucks, 2) there is always a rest area right by the state border, except when you need one, and 3) singing, no matter how shitty your voice is, is perfectly acceptable on a road trip, even with the windows rolled down. They would have been making their way for Kansas, for Shawnee County and a farm near Auburn his parents had bought after his dad's accident.

"Saginaw?" Teal'c would have questioned.

"Michigan," Cam would have said. "You wanna go there?"

Teal'c would have paused and then nodded. "Yes," he would have said, "I think I would like that."

*

But first, home to see his family. Teal'c would have insisted on spending a day in Topeka, visiting the State Courthouse and going up all the flights of stairs to stand outside on top of the dome and survey all they could see.

It would have been a perfect, sunny day, Cam knows, because it would have been the middle of July, the intensity of the heat and humidity overwhelming. (It wouldn't have stopped Teal'c, though, and Cam would have been sweating like a pig, but that wouldn't have stopped him either.)

"I think we can see into Missouri," Cam would have remarked at the top of the dome, and Teal'c would have said, "I believe that is actually Oklahoma," and they would have shared a grin and then looked out over the city streets into the horizon.

*

Onwards, ever onwards, why stop when they were only in the middle of the country? Sometimes Cam would have let the other man drive, but Teal'c wouldn't make demands the way Vala would have, or get fidgety the way Sam would have, or kept up an incessant stream of academic nonsense the way Daniel would have if he wasn't head-down in a book. They would have sat quietly, together, and watched the prairies and the fields fly by.

*

Through the Flint Hills and the Ozarks, a stop in St. Louis for the blues, a stop in Springfield—the Springfield in Illinois, that is—because Teal'c would have insisted on visiting the Lincoln Presidential Library (Teal'c is a great admirer of Lincoln), a few days whooping it up in Chicago. Cam has always loved Chicago since he was a kid; he would have made Teal'c go to the Science &amp; Industry Museum to go into the mine, and Teal'c would have insisted on seeing the Blue Man Group. And they would have enjoyed the nightlife, something Cam learned to love as an adult.

In Indiana they would have gone to the Indy 500 racetrack, after making a stop up in Valparaiso because Teal'c was in a reminiscent mood and wanted to see the VU Chapel again, after stopping in the town in 1969; and of course they at least would have driven through Saginaw, just so Teal'c could say he'd been there. Eventually they would have made their way south to Kentucky, down to Paducah and into Tennessee, winding and meandering and following first one interstate, then a state highway, then another road. No rhyme or reason to their route; they didn't need one, when they were there purely for the joy of it.

Teal'c would have accumulated hats, baseball caps and fedoras and sweatshirts with extra-long hoodies. Cam would have made a game out of finding him the best hat in whatever stop they made, the most perfect souvenir to remember their trip. They would have taken pictures of abandoned churches growing back into the earth, square dancers in colorful fluffy dresses and bright ties, burned-out farmhouses collapsing in on themselves and expansive fields of corn and soybeans, wedding parties and funeral processions.

Catalogers of other peoples' lives, Cam might have said in one of his more whimsical moods, but maybe not; Teal'c would certainly have raised his eyebrow at him dubiously.

*

Eventually they would have had to turn around. Somewhere around Biloxi or New Orleans, maybe, or maybe they would have headed east and gotten as far as Georgia or South Carolina. Cam would have been determined to get to a coast before turning back. He hasn't walked along a beach and swum in the ocean in years. And Teal'c has never seen either the Pacific or the Atlantic from the ground.

But they would have had to turn around at some point.

*

"We must go back, Cameron Mitchell," Teal'c would have insisted one night in the motel, and Cam would have sighed and kicked the wall, lightly, and nodded.

"That does not mean we have to take the most direct route," Teal'c would have added, and when Cam would have glanced at him swiftly, he would have seen the slow curl of Teal'c's lips moving upward. Cam might even have been able to smile back.

*

And so they would have headed west again, but west and south, even if it meant going back through Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas. Cam would not have looked north, toward Shawnee County; he would not have thought about wheat and soybean fields gently waving in a Kansas breeze (hell, he would have thought; Kansas _wind_, let's be honest here). They would have gone through Texas, stopping at the occasional roadhouse and Cam letting his accent remain thick and honeyed. They would have kept going till they hit New Mexico and Teal'c would have insisted then that they turn north now, finally, at last.

Full circle.

*

They should have done it, Cam thinks mournfully as he drives his Camaro along I-70, heading for Shawnee County in the Sunflower state. He should have offered. Teal'c would have accepted with alacrity (alacrity, a good word; Daniel would be raising his eyebrows at him right now, if he were in this Camaro with Cam and not in some anonymous apartment drunk-dialing himself); Teal'c had a not-so-secret love for the oddities and eccentricities of his adopted planet, his adopted country, and it was a shame he had rarely got out of the Mountain to go anywhere other than DC. He would have loved another quintessential American road trip.

It would have been good, Cam knew. Right now, though, Teal'c is probably the First Prime to Apophis, still chafing under enslavement, if he isn't already dead.

Cam pulls into a gravel driveway, parking near a barn and looking out over the wheat and soybean fields, gently swaying in the Kansas breeze.

He really fricking hates alternate realities.

He would have taken Teal'c, though, he knows. If he'd had the chance.

* * *

Cam Mitchell would keep thinking about that road trip throughout the next ten years, as he traveled the world, as he met and loved and fought with Amelia Earhart, as he waited for his opportunity. Even as he wrote his friend R.J., he scribbled mental notes to Teal'c. _Saw Amelia again today. I think you would have liked her, T. Stayed in Bombay for the week; I don't know what Chulak looked like, I don't know what it was like living under the Goa'uld, but I think unfortunately I now have a clearer image of what it _could_ have looked like. I was in South Africa this week, and, oh, Christ, Teal'c, _Christ_, how did you handle it all those years? How did you ever venture out of the Mountain when this was the world you found yourself in?_

He would have taken his friend on the trip of both their lives. And it would have been good.

* * *

"Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c's voice was soft and firm as he made his way through the small and dwindling crowd of Tok'ra, Jaffa, and Tau'ri partygoers. Cameron had started out at the party in boisterous spirits, keeping the other guests laughing, but he had disappeared at some point and Teal'c missed his voice, some story about growing up and getting into trouble once again with his grandmother. It was always his grandmother in these stories, never his parents; it was rare that he told stories about his parents, his father.

He found the colonel sitting in a secluded corner with a drink untouched at his hand. "Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c repeated, and Cam looked up at him.

"Sorry, Teal'c," he said, sitting up straight; Teal'c sat down before he would have felt obliged to stand himself. Courtesy and training; none of the other members of SG-1 were nearly so formal with him. "Didn't hear you. What's up?"

"I merely wondered where you had gone. Is everything alright, Colonel Mitchell?"

"Yeah, of course," Cam shrugged, "why wouldn't it be? We won the day, fought the good fight, everything's hunky-dory."

Teal'c blinked and waited.

Cam was frowning down at the floor again, a look of profound thought on his face. Teal'c had no wish to disturb. So he continued to wait.

At last, Cam roused himself again, noticed the drink at his side, and downed it in one gulp. He set the glass down firmly, made a face at the taste, and looked Teal'c in the eye.

"I've been thinking about taking a road trip," he said. "Whattya think? Wanna come with me?"

Teal'c's eyebrow went up of its own accord. "A road trip where?" he asked.

"The U.S., mostly," Cam said. "Maybe make it up into Canada. Whaddya say? You never get out of the Mountain much anymore, do you? C'mon, you'll love it."

"What has brought this urge on, Colonel Mitchell?"

Cam blinked. "I…don't know, exactly. It's been a while since I've done one, I guess. And I've been thinking I should take you somewhere, so you can see—more than you have." He looked at Teal'c again, shaking himself a little, and Teal'c knew there was more unsaid. Maybe it would always remain unsaid. Maybe Cameron would tell him on this road trip.

Teal'c smiled. "When shall we start?" he asked.


End file.
